Oct 06, 2009

Theologians and Economists: Distributive Justice

Reading the legal codes in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, it is clear that private property was taken for granted. One of the Ten Commandments was “Thou shall not steal.” There are numerous references about appropriate restitution when someone’s property has been taken or damaged. Private property was central to Old Testament economic life.

However, ownership of private property was not absolute.

Deut 15:4-5 NRSV

4 There will, however, be no one in need among you, because the LORD is sure to bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a possession to occupy, 5 if only you will obey the LORD your God by diligently observing this entire commandment that I command you today.

The law required that farmers not harvest all the way to the edge of the field. (Leviticus 23:22) The Jubilee placed restrictions on the permanent transfer of land. (Leviticus 25) Also, the Israelites were required to make contributions for care of the Levites and certain governmental activities. There were communal issues that took precedence over property rights.

No where in Scripture do we see a mandate for an equal distribution of income. Some argue that the jubilee code in Leviticus 25 was wealth redistribution. It was not. The jubilee put measures in place that prevented the permanent sale of agricultural land or permanent servitude. Debt was tightly constrained.

Some have used Acts 2:45 to suggest that the Early church intended communal ownership of property:

Acts 2:44-45 NRSV

44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

These actions were done under extraordinary circumstances. The church was exploding. Many new believers would have been disowned by their families. Christians voluntarily pooled their resources to meet the need. This was not a model for ongoing church community.

The ideal world envisioned by peasants of Palestine in Jesus' day, as well as in the Old Testament era, was each peasant with his own land, free to enjoy the fruits of his labor. The common reality was domination by one political force or another.

Taxation and fees could amount to more than half of what peasants produced. The produce was hoarded in vast storehouses and either traded for other goods (enjoyed only by the wealthy) with distant nations or sold back to peasants and urban workers. Governments worked hard to replace barter exchange with monetary exchange, thus improving their ability to tax transactions. Wealthy landowners would find opportunities to loan peasants money when they hit hard times. But the peasants lived on such a razor-thin margins of production that they rarely had any surplus to repay. One more hard time and they would loose their lands to the wealthy landowners and become their serfs. Revolts were generally led by revolutionaries and new empires who promised cancellation of debts and land redistribution but once in power they would resort to the same old tactics.

In this context, where increase in productivity through technological innovation was unheard of, the economy was a zero-sum game. Someone's significant excess in wealth was understood to come at the expense of others. Unlike today, where most wealth exists in the form of productive assets like stock ownership or money made available for loans by placing it on deposit at the bank, wealth generally meant acquiring land (thus depriving someone else of land) and warehousing things like grain (thus depriving others of food.) Thus, the concerns for distribution of goods do not easily translate into a modern economy.

Seemingly, God desires to have billions of Adams working their own “gardens.” He created all of us to be stewards of his resources. When all goods are held in common, the productivity and creativity tends to drop to the level of the laziest and most incompetent. There is no incentive to work harder. Any increased productivity merely accrues to the slackers. Private property encourages conscientious use of resources to their maximum benefit. Therefore, the most economically productive arraignment is private property. Still, God’s mandate that there “be no one in need among you” checks productivity as our only value.

"But I caution against too quickly jumping to the conclusion that this means massive centralized government programs ... or that it doesn't. We can't get a direct answer to this from Scripture."

-I agree with the way you put this. I'd go further in saying that the answer to those questions lie more in how respective cultures interface with Scripture. I think that is a shade of analysis that's missing in the conversation. Even your conclusion that private property is the "most economically productive arrangement" is as much a cultural statement than anything else. I'd be curious as to whether that statement holds across cultures and social groups. Different cultures conceive of private property and the checks upon it in different ways. How culturally conditioned or "normative" are these statements about property?

Also while you mention there are concerns that place a check on private property as an economic model, where I think theologians and economists have been derelict is in developing a ways for the public to decide if their particular property rights (or desire for property) are getting in the way of other concerns. Take the example of the US housing market crisis. One finding that several studies have backed up is that a large number of people who could not afford or care for houses were buying them. Financiers were helping to push a personal desire that had negative social consequences. In response to making home ownership the "American Dream" I've seen articles pop up recently about the joys of renting.

If theologians and economists came together to put a check on the desire for personal property (at least among Christians) some of those mistakes might have been avoided.

"Even your conclusion that private property is the "most economically productive arrangement" is as much a cultural statement than anything else. I'd be curious as to whether that statement holds across cultures and social groups."

That is an empirical observation that spans cultures. Every culture that has experienced extended widespread prosperity has had a strong sense of property rights though, as you note, there is some difference in how the rights are reckoned from culture to culture. It need not be precisely American notions of property rights. I'd also add that part of what has made Anglo-American economic emergence possible is common law and the ability it gives for rights to morph and evolve over time.

China is going to be interesting to watch. The theory is that as prosperity rises and spreads pressure grows for greater respect for property rights and rule of law. There has been pressure growing toward this but it remains to be seen how it all plays out.

As to the housing crisis, I don't know that I'd say that was a property rights issue. That was more the judgment about whether people should use their resources to buy real estate versus alternative uses. The positive economist can give us some insight about trade-offs and risk but without stipulating what values we are operating from we can't really choose in a particular direction.

I do agree with you that we need to give serious theological reflection to the idea of the "American Dream" and rigorous examination of what motivates us to buy what do in a post-materialist (i.e., no longer focused on meeting basic material needs) society.

Thanks for your clarifications and nuance on property rights. Do you happen to know of any authors or resources that address the issue across cultures? I think what sometimes makes this issue difficult is that "property rights" becomes conflated with "anglo-american tradition of property rights." In that way, other cultures are not as free to experiment until they find ways of instilling property rights which make sense given their history, narrative and goals.

My comment about the housing crisis would perhaps be better stated as a concern about the way property is valued in our society. It feeds into my fear that the "American Dream" has been warped so as to encourage practices that may become societally undesirable and untenable.

The same groups of people who unwisely bought homes are likely think of homes as personal assets which accord them status, connection to the land, and stability. Maybe a good question to explore would be where property fits in among the assets that lead to wealth. What other assets besides property fulfill that kind of material and existential need for status, connection and stability?

in this modern day and in the US, would education be a fair correlation to OT property? people guaranteed the MEANS to take part in a productive society? if i understand things properly, land ownership then wasn't intended as a societal comfort as we now treat it. it was the only thing the individual could hang on to to retain his ability to take part in a productive society and to retain his ability to be self-dependent. land ownership is no longer required to do that, but in most cases education is. does this shift someone's "right" to land over to education?

I think there is merit to that idea. Throughout most of human history, land and labor were the primary means of production. Then came capital with the industrial revolution. Increasingly, human capital ... knowledge, experience, mental ability ... is becoming important.